In a Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) deployment, a Network Management Station (NMS) may poll a network device (such a router or switch) for management data related to the network device's performance and/or health. To facilitate this polling process, the NMS traditionally performs a discovery operation to enumerate the various objects included in the management data of the network device. Unfortunately, the management data may be fluid and/or dynamic in nature. As a result, the NMS may need to perform such a discovery operation on a fairly regular basis (e.g., once a day) to account for objects that have recently been added to or removed from the management data. Upon completion of the discovery operation, the NMS may be able to poll the network device for certain individual objects in which the NMS is interested.
Unfortunately, this traditional discovery and polling relationship may have certain shortcomings and/or inefficiencies. For example, traditional discovery operations and polling processes may be relatively time-consuming and/or resource intensive. As an example, a traditional discovery operation may necessitate two separate communications (e.g., a request from the NMS and a response from the network device) for each object included in the management data. In this traditional discovery operation, the separate communications for each object may need to be performed one by one in a serial fashion to discover all of the objects in the management data. As a result, to fully enumerate the various objects included in the management data, the traditional discovery operation may take a relatively long time to complete and/or place a heavy processing burden on the NMS and/or the network device.
As another example, to facilitate discovery of all the objects included in the management data, the network device may need to maintain, collect, and/or report the management data in some sort of lexicographical order. However, the network device may add a new object to and/or remove an obsolete object from the management data at any given moment due to the fluid and/or dynamic nature of the management data. As a result, the network device may need to allocate and/or invest significant resources to preserve the lexicographical ordering when reporting the management data to the NMS. For example, the network device may need to continuously re-aggregate and/or re-assemble its management data so as to correctly report the lexicographically-next object included in the management data during a discovery operation.
In a traditional polling process, the NMS may need to identify and/or request a portion of management data using one or more Object IDentifiers (OIDs) corresponding to the requested portion of management data. Unfortunately, this traditional polling process may involve reporting, in a single response to the NMS, each object included in the requested portion of management data. As a result, this traditional polling process may dictate and/or limit how or where each object is reported in the response and/or prevent the network device from reporting an arbitrarily large set of management data to the NMS without corresponding polling requests.
The instant disclosure, therefore, identifies and addresses a need for additional and improved apparatuses, systems, and methods for distributing management data to NMSes.